There is a write-up here of a study which found evidence of a benefit for increased mental activity (e.g reading). The study used Magnetic Resonance Imaging to look at a marker for cell damage and found this to be reduced as activities such as reading increased although this was assessed using retrospective recall. It will be interesting to see the results of further replication studies.

Virtual reality has been used to teach social skills to people with Autism in one study.

One systematic reviewed looked at the management of dysphagia in Dementia and finding the prevalence ranged from 13 to 57% in the examined studies.

The dual syndrome hypothesis of Parkinson’s Disease is covered in this post which looks at the roles of Dopamine and Acetylcholine in cognitive impairment.

In this meta-analysis the researchers concluded that there was a critical threshold for the magnitude of the placebo response in antidepressant trials.

D-cycloserine was associated with changes in activity in the Prefrontal Cortex seen at 1 week in the treatment of snake phobia in this fMRI study (n=20).

The baroreflex was investigated in this study and found to be reduced in Alzheimer’s Disease compared to people with mild cognitive impairment or healthy controls and associated with significant change after treatment.

Agitation in advanced Dementia was managed using a protocol (Treatment Routes for Exploring Agitation or TREA) in this study. The researchers assessed the efficacy of the protocol and found evidence of benefit.

The relationship between ACE inhibitor use and incidence of mild cognitive impairment was investigated in this study.

There was some preliminary evidence of the benefit of reduced peripheral vascular resistance and incidence of Dementia in this study.

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